Kore | Persephone Picture

Aquatint on paper. For my final Print Media 1 project finished around March of 2013 (a year ago, whoops, look at late little me), where we could choose any kind of printing method we learned (Linocut, Woodcut, or Etching). I chose, of course, the most painful and long winded and hazardous method.

I'm super happy with this. This is not drawn. This is a print. As in, I took two 9x12" copper plates, coated it with hard ground, drew with a needle point, then dropped these babies in acid so that the lines would cut into the copper. Then I took the copper and printed copies and copies with ink and the printing press. The gray tones you see are done with aquatint, a technique of etching, as well as subsequent sandpaper buffering for the light tones to come back. I was extremely excited to learn an "old master" medium, so I was all gung-ho to do it again for the final... X_X silly little me.

I've dealt with Persephone/Kore like three times now in my projects alone. I love duality (um yeah have you seen my gallery, captain obvious coming to shore), and themes of mirrored images with key differences. If you take a gander at my process work, you can see how I managed to mirror the drawing on the second plate.

In this case, Persephone (the red plate) came first, and Kore (the green) came second, but when you print, the image becomes reversed.

I can't even explain etching. It's a tough, consuming, maddening process, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat X_X Three final editions were made for this print, with numerous testing pieces before and after in grayscale, as well as in their green/red. The green/red is mixed, so I will never be able to achieve this colour again, even if I do reprint the plates. Yay rarity!